Our California Family Road Trip: The Cabazon Dinosaurs Palm Springs

I’m back again, writing about our most incredible trip to California even though it was in APRIL LAST YEAR. It’s ridiculous how long it is taking me to get through these posts, but life got in the way a little bit. In a weird sort of way it’s actually really nice to wait until now to get them written because I get to relive our amazing road trip and reminisce about the time we had. It’s one of those trips where I look back at the photos and can’t actually believe that we experienced it. It actually makes me feel such a strange sense of emotions looking back, it was such a carefree, amazing time of our lives.

In my last post I wrote about our brief stopover at Newport Beach just for the evening. The next morning we woke up and I was so excited as we were heading to one of the places on our road trip I had been looking to the most- Palm Springs. Even though the majority of our road trip centred around going down the Californian Coastline, I knew straight away that we had to detour to Palm Springs- it’s a place I have always wanted to go. I don’t know what it is about it, but it’s just somewhere that’s always been on my bucket list. I think it’s the fact that it’s so well known for it’s mid century modern architecture and design which I love, plus its retro style, as well of course the fact that it is in the desert so is famed for it’s cacti and plants. Anyway I will talk more about Palm Springs in my next post, but we got up bright and early and after a lovely morning in Newport Beach we headed on the just under two hour trip to Palm Springs.

Just as we were arriving into Palm Springs, with the famous mountains and desert in the distance I told Jon that I wanted to pull over and have a detour- to the Cabazon Dinosaurs. The Cabazon Dinosaurs are a bit of a cult iconic roadside attraction. Driving along the highway you might even miss it, but if you glance to the right you will notice a rather large T-Rex on the side of the road. Drive in to the parking lot and here you’ll see that it’s not an illusion, there’s a whole world of dinosaurs waiting for you to explore.

The Cabazon Dinosaurs are at first a little random, but they are definitely worth a visit. The dinosaurs are part of pop culture, having been featured in cult movie classics such as Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure and in the video for Oasis’ Supersonic. I had seen about the Dinosaurs on one of my favourite US bloggers ‘Love Taza’ and I knew my dinosaur mad girls would really enjoy it. It seemed like the perfect stop before we headed into Palm Springs for a few days.

You can just stop on the side of the road and take a photo with the T-Rex if you don’t fancy paying admission to get in, but in my opinion it is definitely worth paying to get in. It’s not cheap- $12 per adult, $10 per child and under 2’s are free, but it’s a fun way to spend an hour or so (it’s definitely not a whole day out event, hence why it’s just a roadside attraction).

The iconic T-Rex is definitely an attraction in itself, when we were there many people stopped off in their cars just to take a photo of him.

It also hit us as we got out the car just how hot it was. From going along the coast for the first week or so where in April it was sunny but mild, to suddenly arriving in the desert where it was really warm, it felt good to feel the sun on our shoulders.

Once you are inside the attraction you can dig for dinosaurs (once you find a stone with a symbol on you can exchange it for a little toy in the shop), do some fossil panning (which the girls loved) and you can walk around and learn more about the 50 or so dinosaurs. You can also climb to the very top of the T-Rex and look out of his mouth which was fun as well.

It was just a really fun way to spend an hour or so and definitely one I recommend if you are heading into Palm Springs. The kids loved it and I liked seeing a funny little part of pop culture history.

I can feel the heat just bursting out of these pictures! Lovely. Your opening sentences made me smile – I often take months to catch up on my writing, too. How cool are these dinosaurs, though? Fabulous.

What a fun place! I’m still writing up holiday posts from months ago too and am really enjoying looking back on all the things we did. Your trip to California looked amazing – it’s something I’d love to do with my girls one day.